Review: Eat Pray Love (Elizabeth Gilbert)

Review by Dina Sandika

A glance at the catchy simple title would have been enough to make you want to flip the book over and see what it has to say. After you did, well, it might even lead you to do impulsive buying. I mean, who would not love to read about an adventurous soul-searching journey, more over when Italy, India and Bali were involved.

Elizabeth Gilbert had everything a woman should ever want – a marriage, a successful carrier, a nice house in nice neighborhood - yet her discontentment was so great she succumbed into depression instead of happiness. After a nasty divorce, another unhappy-ending love affair and countless pills, she quit her job and left everything for a year journey - first through Italy with determination to immerse herself in true pleasure, then to find spiritual fulfillment through India, and finally, learned to find balance in the land of the gods. She told her story in such a funny, witty, take-it-easy tone it's so enjoyable to flip through the first few chapters. The pages were also fat with charming descriptions of the cultural and historical characteristic of each place she had lived in. Nevertheless, as much as one might enjoy keep following her interesting journey, I personally could not keep my excitement at high level anymore as soon as I reach India. The elaborate description had begun to feel too personal and dragging, though we could still ran into witty jokes cracked here and there.

After finishing the book I couldn't help thinking it was like going through a full course dinner in an amazingly relaxed pace in which we enjoyed each course with such detailed attention to each particular part of the dish; the side dish, the sauce, even the garnish… and then, quite abruptly, we had to finish off the dessert in one gulp. However, it is still an enjoyable book. With love, god and true happiness at its core, the story is relevant for the life of many of us today. And who knows, we might find courage and inspiration from the book.***

(Eat Pray Love had been adapted into motion pictures, starring Julia Roberts, Bill Crudup, Javier Bardem, and James Franco. The movie will be released in Indonesia on Sept 2010.)